Desperate Obama Gins Up Impeachment Talk -- But He May be Miscalculating

RUSH: Yesterday on this program, ladies and gentlemen, I happened to remark on something I saw on CNN. CNN reported with a graphic... I didn't have the sound on, but I didn't need the sound on. It was CNN. I knew what they were gonna say soon as I saw the graphic. Now, as you know Obama has been practically begging the Republicans to impeach him.

He wants to be impeached, it looks like. More and more people are theorizing that he wants to be impeached because the Democrats have made a political calculation. They think impeachment will help them. They think impeachment will hurt the Republicans. Now, I'm not so sure of that. But it's academic anyway because the Republicans aren't gonna do it. But that's not stopping the media from reporting that they're gonna do it.

That's the point! Boehner took it off the table if it was ever on the table, and I don't like all these things being "taken off the table," by the way. We just said we're not gonna shut the government down, so we're not gonna use the power of the purse to stop Obama. Okay. Now we're saying impeachment's off the table, so we're not gonna use the Constitution to stop Obama.

So the Republican Party is bragging or broadcasting that they're not gonna do anything to stop Obama, and I'll tell you why. Because they, too, believe that any... They still believe, even with all the polling data and the plummeting approval numbers, that if there's any pursuit of Obama politically, that it's just gonna send the independents running right to the Democrats in the midterms and all that.

They really do believe, even now, that the public does not want to hear their Dear Leader criticized. They don't want to hear their Dear Leader subject to impeachment talks or what have you, and so the Republicans are doing everything they can tell everybody, "We're not gonna impeach him! We're not gonna do it!" It's just purely defensive. It's rooted in fear, and I think it's a miscalculation.

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here. I'm not banging the bells here for impeachment. That's not the way to go about this. Impeachment is the last thing that happens in a process that ought to be happening -- and what ought to be happening is being led by Jeff Sessions.

What Jeff Sessions is doing is what the Republican Party at large should be doing. He went to the floor of the Senate, and he described the administration as lawless, said that they are engaging in lawless behavior. By the way, it's effective 'cause the Drive-Bys... Poor little Jeff Sessions. Nobody pays attention to him, and now the Drive-Bys are all over this guy like he is the reincarnation of Jabba the Hutt.

This guy's the biggest enemy now. They just can't believe he would dare call the president of the United States lawless because of this immigration policy, and the threat that Obama will -- just with a stroke of his pen -- grant amnesty to five or six million of the 11 million that were here. The stroke-of-pen amnesty is not about the kids that are arriving, folks.

What Obama is threatening to do -- and nobody knows if he'll do it for sure. What he's threatening to do, since the Republicans won't act, is just do an executive order or an executive action that would grant amnesty to five or six million of the supposed 11 million "living in the shadows." I don't know how he's gonna identify which ones of the 11 or 12 million get it.

It doesn't matter. The theory is he's trying to goad the Republicans into just reaching the end of their tolerance and finally launch impeachment because the political calculation among the smart people inside the Beltway is that any move to impeach Obama will just ruin Republican electoral chances, and it will revive a moribund, depressed Democrat base.

I don't happen to believe that, but I'm not gonna persuade anybody because the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway is set. So on CNN -- even though the Republicans have said, "There's no impeachment. It's off the table; it was never on the table" -- the story nevertheless is that the Republicans want to impeach him. CNN ran a story yesterday that essentially said, "Republicans to impeach Obama!

"Republicans want to impeach Obama! Republicans are doing it!" So even though it isn't true, CNN ran a story that isn't true graphically. I don't know what they reported. Anyway, this reporting by me on this program ended up being a discussion topic on the Fox All Stars with Bret Baier last night, and Bret Baier used a clip of me on this program to set it up.

RUSH ARCHIVE: CNN and other Drive-By Media are gonna report this not as something Obama is trying to make happen. They're going to report this as something the Republicans want to happen, so that they get creamed by it even if they do nothing. It's a strategy.

RUSH: That's exactly right. That's what CNN was doing yesterday: Trying to report that the Republicans want it to happen, can't wait to impeach Obama, are thinking about impeaching Obama, so that it hurts them politically, even when they don't do it. And precisely because they don't do it, because the Republicans said they're not gonna do it, CNN and the media say, "Oh, yeah? Watch us! We're gonna tell everybody you want to," and that's all it's gonna take."

So then Bret Baier went to Juan Williams and said, "Is it fair to say that most Republicans are not pushing impeachment, Juan? Isn't that true?"

WILLIAMS: "Pushing" is a... You know, it's a soft word. But, I mean, if you ask people on the record right now, you get what Boehner said today, which is, "We have no plans," et cetera. The base and a lot of talk radio hosts, Limbaugh included, are saying Obama is a tyrant. He's exceeding his authority. He's a bad man, et cetera, deserving of impeachment.

You know, impeachment is supposed to be for high crimes and misdemeanors. But that is out there, that there has to be some way. "Will someone take care of this horrible man in some way?" The real remedy in terms of if the president has exceeded authority, as we've heard it described, would be to say that this president is deserving of a vote by the House on impeachment.

RUSH: See, I continually get mischaracterized on this. I have not led any pro-impeachment movement! I am not. We're not there yet. I just said it again. The case has been made with the American people. It's a political event. It's not a legal event. Impeachment's the... And this high crimes and misdemeanors? You know, it's typical that somebody's a creature of Washington has lived and worked inside the Beltway all their adult lives would not know what that means.

High crimes and misdemeanors does not mean theft, larceny, murder, any of that. High crimes and misdemeanors means dereliction of duty! High crimes and misdemeanors means action outside the Constitution. High crimes and misdemeanors means action detrimental to the country in violation of the oath of office. It's an entirely different the thing than a criminal definition.

I mean, misdemeanors, for crying out loud, are zilch. You don't get any jail time for misdemeanor. You get a slap on the wrist, a couple hours of community service and you're gone. What do you mean high crimes and misdemeanors? High crimes and misdemeanors, in a political sense, has to... I'll tell you.

The fact of the matter is, if you want to know what high crimes and misdemeanors means, just look at what Obama is doing, and you have your definition -- and I'm not surprised that Juan Williams wouldn't know this. "A tyrant exceeding his authority"? He is exceeding his authority, and he's doing it purposefully!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Dr. Krauthammer. He was asked by Bret Baier to weigh in on my comment that whatever the Republicans do, the Democrats and media are gonna report that the Republicans can't wait to impeach Obama.

KRAUTHAMMER: It is coming from real actions the president has taken: Lawlessly changing the Obamacare law, lawlessly changing the drug laws, lawlessly changing our energy policy. It isn't a matter of he being a bad man. It's a violation of our Constitution --

AB STODDARD: But the impeachment push --

KRAUTHAMMER: -- and if he does immigration, I could see this president --

AB STODDARD: Okay.

KRAUTHAMMER: -- who said he'd be the one who would bring us together. I can see him being cynical enough -- as a way to... to gin up feelings against the Democrats over immigration -- by executive order, calling for the non-enforcement of the immigration laws, which would be an invitation to impeachment that I think would help him politically.

RUSH: So Dr. Krauthammer believes, like most of inside-the-Beltway Washington, that the politics of this are impeachment hurts Republicans. Even breathing it, even discussing it! If they went so far as to actually start drafting articles, why, that'd be the end of the Republican Party. The American people may be ticked off, but they loooove them some Obama. They love the first African-American president, and there is no way the American people are gonna sit by and watch their president sent packing by a bunch of mean-spirited, racist extremists!

That's the political calculation behind it, and apparently Dr. Krauthammer believes it, too. I'm not so sure, but it's academic 'cause the Republicans aren't gonna do anything. It doesn't matter. Even though they don't, the media is going to report that they want to, so you better steel yourself for the fact that we're gonna find out what the politics of this are, 'cause I guarantee you Obama is gonna do everything he can to draw them out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This high crimes and misdemeanors business. I mean, there are real-world events that are driving this, this discussion.

And make no mistake: Obama really is trying to goad the Republicans into doing it. That's all they've got. Either that or the race card or something similar to try to excite their base. Because there is literally nothing going on policy-wise from this administration that is being supported or people want more of. And so what they have decided to do, the race card or impeachment, it's all part of this attempt to make Obama this little victim. He's just such a nice guy and he only wants to help people and here come the mean Republicans, damn it, here they go again, they want to destroy every nice person.

That's what they're trying to gin up, Obama as the victim, Obama as a good-hearted, fight against all the odds, trying to fix all the problems, victim of powerful, mean-spirited, racist forces in Washington. Now, Obama's approval rating, last we saw it reported, was at 39% in Gallup, an all-time low. And you know why? His approval rating is down because he has made mistaken assumptions about public sentiment. And I think they're making a mistake on the public sentiment on immigration.

Now, follow me on this. This stuff at the border going on right now, this is not coincidental. We found, just as a reminder -- I know that those of you listening regularly, this is gonna sound like a repeated news item, bit of redundancy, but I ask your indulgence, because there are people tuning in for the first time every day here. We found that back in January the administration had posted a jobs listing memo on one of their Internet sites. They were seeking logistics and transportation companies to apply for federal contracts to transport 65,000 immigrant children between January and July, something like that.

They knew in January. And by the way, this assault on the border by accompanied children actually began in December. It was in January that we found the jobs posting memo. The bottom line is the Regime knew in January that these kids were coming. It takes 45 days to get here from Central America. It didn't just happen overnight without anybody knowing it. It wasn't just all of a sudden one day, out of the clear blue, tens of thousands of children are trying to get in the country. This has been orchestrated, in part by repeated claims by the Regime that if you're here, you get to stay.

Obama 2012, just granting amnesty to all of the illegal alien kids 16 years of age and under. If you're here you're staying and you're now legal, sends a message. The point is, these people were on the way. It takes 45 days to get here. There's no end in sight to it. The politics of it is that the Regime thought making children the face of illegal immigration would lower resistance to illegal immigration. They were playing the children card again. A great miscalculation. A huge political miscalculation.

They thought if the only noticed immigrants coming across or if the only reported immigrants coming across were poor children without their parents, that the American people would open their arms and accept them and the exact opposite has happened and the Regime was surprised. They have been, I think, really surprised by the degree of protest that this has been met with.

I'll give you another example where they miscalculated public sentiment. The health insurance subsidies and the Supreme Court decision last week. Remember when Obamacare was passed and we finally saw what was in it, the bottom line was that the only people getting subsidies were enrollees via state exchanges. Well, 36 states didn't set up exchanges. The law specifically said that citizens who signed up through HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange, would not get subsidies.

This was done to pressure Republican governors into signing on to Obamacare and setting up exchanges. It was thought that the Republicans would cave because public sentiment would be such that people would demand their freebie, would demand their subsidies, and if they didn't get them, blame the Republicans. That has not happened. Another political miscalculation by the Regime. There were 36 states that said "no." And the DC circuit court ruling may lead to Obamacare's collapse because they tried a political maneuver here that has blown up in their face.

They also thought that the effort by Republicans to demand accountability for what went on in Benghazi, and they also thought that the IRS scandal and the VA scandal, the Fast and Furious, they thought those would have gone away by now. They thought people would have forgotten Benghazi and the IRS. They thought these kinds of things would have worked to their advantage politically, and none of them have. Every one of these things, in a political sense, I'm talking about public opinion, not the Republicans. In the sense of public opinion, Obama's approval ratings are falling, and all of these things the Regime thought would jack up favorability haven't.

Instead, they've got a select committee that's gonna be chaired by Trey Gowdy on Benghazi. They have other congressional committees looking into all of the other evidence of wrongdoing, obstruction, be it the IRS, be it the VA. Now they've got judges, federal judges demanding that the government go under oath, the IRS, try to get to the bottom of that scandal. They really thought that Obama engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors, i.e., this lawless kind of behavior as described aptly by Jeff Sessions, children as the face of immigration, they thought that this would force two things: Obama's approval numbers up, and even further anger at Republicans. This has not happened.

Now, the next thing on the list that supposedly is gonna redound to Obama's benefit is immigration. So if the media can convince people that the Republicans really want to do it, Obama thinks he's gonna be sitting in fat city. Well, every political calculation they have made has blown up in their face, and the big one is the illegal immigrant children. That has resulted in a blow-back that the Regime and the Democrat Party never counted on. So they're finding and experiencing a lot of reaction they didn't expect issue after issue after issue.

Now, from my standpoint, you have a president, we do, who is engaging in lawless behavior. I mean, there isn't any question about it. It's just a matter of how much you want to think about it and admit it and then what you want to do about it, but the fact that it's happening is not arguable. All of these executive orders, the threats to just with a signature grant amnesty, none of this. I mean, this is what Nixon dreamed of. Nixon never got close to doing any of this, he just dreamed of it and they impeached him for that. So I think that the miscalculations that are piling up here -- you have a president that is engaging in lawless behavior, is threatening even more of it -- I think if they think that is gonna help them politically, they may be miscalculating.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Fairfax, Virginia. This is Karen, and thank you. Thank you for calling. Hi.

CALLER: Oh, Rush, it is a pleasure to talk to you.

RUSH: Is it still? After 26 years, is it still a big deal to listen and talk to me? Is it really?

CALLER: It really is. It really is. (chuckles)

RUSH: I thank you. I thank you very much. That's very sweet of you to say.

CALLER: Thank you. I want you to know, I have two grandchildren now, one and three years old, and I'm looking forward to buying all your books for them.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: Thank you.

RUSH: I deeply appreciate that.

CALLER: Thank you. What I wanted to tell you is that I wholeheartedly agree with usually 99.9% everything you say, and I do on this, but this is what my concern is. If the Republicans move forward with impeachment, which is 100% deserved --

RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Hold it. Whoa.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: I'm glad you said that. I need to clarify. I am not advocating that!

CALLER: I understand, but --

RUSH: I'm not, and neither are the Republicans! Boehner said yesterday isn't gonna be any impeachment, and yet look! This is exactly what Obama wants. We're still talking about it. What we need to be talking about is exactly what Jeff Sessions is talking about: Obama's lawless behavior. Don't even say the word "impeachment." Just talk about Obama's lawless, extra-constitutional behavior. It's already a majority of people are opposed to it. But, anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead and finish your thought.

CALLER: That's okay. I heard on the news break earlier, then, that they were going to sue Obama. Is that correct?

RUSH: Yeah, but that's not impeachment.

CALLER: Okay. Well, that's what I heard on, like, the news break on the radio.

RUSH: Yeah, presidents get sued all the time. This is nothing new. Suing Obama for separation of powers violations, those things happen all the time. But that's not drawing up articles of impeachment and having a trial in the Senate. None of that.

CALLER: Well, it just seems like if they keep talking about it -- and I'm sure the Democrats want to keep talking about it -- it's gonna take the light off of Obama and all the awful things that he's been doing and the things that are undoing all the good things about this country --

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait.

CALLER: -- and it's gonna put the Republicans in a bad light in November.

RUSH: Wait a minute. How is talking about all of the violations of his oath of office Obama is committing taking the light off it?

CALLER: Talking about that is good. Talking about trying to move... Well, okay. You're right. Talking about that is good, and bringing that to the surface. What concerns me is the way the Democrats and the liberals and the media constantly take the truth and spin it so far out of proportion.

And we on the conservative side always come off looking like the villains, and then when something does take place and you need to the Republicans to stand up for what is right and what we are doing or they are doing that is right, they fold. They don't speak up for themselves, for our cause, and the Democrats are out there talking a mile a minute.

RUSH: Yeah. I know. It's, what, the last six years.

CALLER: Yeah, and -- and --

RUSH: But I want to prepare you for something. I want to prepare you for something. I just... The only people that are talking about impeachment, as though it's going to happen, are the media and Obama. I'm gonna try to prepare you for the fact you're gonna be pulling your hair out. You called here, "Rush, we can't do it! We can't do it, 'cause they'll just galvanize Obama's support! We can't do it."

I agree with you.

The Democrats know that, too. So they're just gonna lie.

The media is just gonna lie.

They're gonna report every day that the Republicans want to impeach Obama. You're not gonna hear one Republican say they want to impeach Obama. Not one Republican is gonna say it. Yet the media every day is gonna have stories about how the Republicans want to do it, "even though they don't say it." So you just better get ready, because exactly what you don't want to happen, the media is gonna try to convince low-information Nimrods it is happening.